


Mourning

by crispy (crispy_obtained)



Series: our life - Christen and Cove [1]
Category: Our Life: Beginnings & Always (Visual Novel)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Other, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28713813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crispy_obtained/pseuds/crispy
Summary: 2014, 16 years old.After school one day, Christen Last decides to head to the hills behind his house with a guitar and a listless expression.
Relationships: Cove Holden/Original Male Character
Series: our life - Christen and Cove [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2104902
Kudos: 5





	Mourning

**Author's Note:**

> self-indulgent fanfiction? yeah.
> 
> the fanfictions i’ll be posting for this group of fanfictions are mostly boring little scenes that are made for my amusement, and to expand on the mc i made for Our Life. they’re also out of order, so i might be posting this one now, but later i’ll post one that takes place in 2009 or something. 
> 
> the idea for the mourning a random dead person came from a tumblr post i saw.   
> k thats it. enjoy the fic.

_16 years old, 2014_

Christen, tired, fell onto the mattress, only for his head to lightly hit the wall in front of him. he let out a quiet grunt to voice his pain out loud, but it became clear to him that there was no one in the room to listen to him. he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, wondering what the hell he was doing.   
he couldn't hate a single thing about his life. he couldn't hate his family, since they never did anything wrong. he couldn't hate his school, since it's gradually gotten better ever since he started making more friends, and since history class overwrote all the terrible feelings that math and english filled him with. he couldn't hate his band, since music was a big part of his life and he could never. he wondered if he did something right in his past life. he must've, to be blessed with such a content and fulfilling life.  
but for some reason, he still felt unhappy. he heard from somewhere online that if you felt unhappy for no reason, it must mean that someone in the world has died with no mourners, so god assigned the mourning to you. suddenly, he started feeling bad for the dead. _poor guy_ , he thought. _i'll mourn you properly, i guess._ he checked his phone.

5:41.

he sighed. " i could finish my homework tomorrow i guess. " he whispered to himself. he dragged his body up and off the bed. he turned to his guitar and the smaller and cuter ukulele laying next to it. Christen thought that the random soul might enjoy some music at their makeshift mourning funeral. he laughed at himself and grabbed his guitar.   
he passed his mom on his way out. " hey kiddo. " she grinned at him.  
" heya mom. i'm headed to the hills behind our house. "   
" meeting someone? "  
" something like that. " he responded, exiting the house. 

he sat on the hills and stared at the flowers surrounding him. he started wondering about this random - and probably imaginary - person that he created for the sole purpose of pinning the reason for his sudden sadness. maybe this random person died a happy but lonely life and died of old age. maybe he was killed by a horrible maniac or a jealous lover. maybe he commited suicide and no one cared.  
he stared at the sky. yeah, a suicide would explain his empty mourning. he pulled himself up and picked a couple flowers. painstakingly, he attempted to make a flower-crown-slash-wreath for the imaginary dead guy. the poppies wouldn't hold together as easily as Christen had imagined, but eventually he got a crown that looked decent. he placed it on the lower ground in front of him and sat down again. he pulled his guitar up and onto his lap, and strummed a few notes. he was never good at improv, but he didn’t mind. it wasn’t like anyone was there to watch him anyways. he strummed a couple notes, sang something, laughed at himself for saying something so cheesy, and repeated. eventually, he got his phone out and wrote down some progressions that he thought were interesting and some lyrics that he thought were nice.   
as he wrote, a song was forming in his head. he knew he wasn’t going to record a demo for it - this song was for this imaginary dead guy and the imaginary dead guy alone. he shuffled a bit to get more comfortable and turned to the flower crown, treating it as if it were the dead themself. 

he began to strum a few notes to start the song, then began singing.

Christen let out a sigh and kept strumming. as he played, he imagined a teenager, no older than the sixteen years that he was, tired and alone. their life wouldn’t have been as plentiful as Christen’s, and Christen was aware that their life may very well had been worse.  
he imagined a kid going to school, only to be alone with no friends, to the point where people won’t even bully them. he imagined a kid with parents who neglected and them and could never accept them. he imagined an unhappy kid who forced themself to end it all because they knew nobody would care.  
he stared straight at the flower crown.  
he kept playing then, empty chords and tag-a-longs that he knew just carried out the song and made it feel complete. he then laid his guitar to rest next to him. he pulled his legs to his chest and set his arms atop his knees as he stared out into the distant sky solemnly. he couldn’t think of anything at that moment, or maybe he was starting to think of something but it held no coherent meaning. 

then, Christen heard a voice that made him perk up. 

he turned and there he was, green hair and all, Cove Holden. he watched his long time neighbor and short time boyfriend run down the hill as he called Christen’s name. Cove sat next to Christen and stared at him.  
“ what are you doing here? “ Cove asked. “ i saw you leaving your house from my window but i couldn’t leave ‘till i finished my homework. “  
Christen snickered. he had almost forgotten about his homework.  
“ i’m mourning. “ Cove clearly looked confused, and Christen was all too familiar with this face of his. this wasn’t the first time he had done or said something incredibly vague.  
“ who are you mourning? “  
Christen shrugged. “ i don’t know. “  
“ you don’t know who you’re mourning…? “  
Christen shook his head. “ i just felt down, y’know? and i heard somewhere online that when you’re sad for no reason, that means there's someone out there who died and they didn’t have anyone to mourn them. so i’m mourning for them. “

the silence that spread between felt somewhat awkward, and Christen knew that Cove didn’t know what to say then.  
“ ...did you do your homework? “ Cove subtly spat out. Christen chuckled at the mention of homework.  
“ i can do that tomorrow? “  
“ you don’t sound so sure there. “  
they shared a laugh. “ i was planning on doing it later if not tomorrow. it’s not like there's anything important going on tomorrow. “  
“ oh, so the science quiz isn’t important? “  
“ there’s a science quiz? “  
“ wow, you’re hopeless. “ Cove laughed and Christen could only let out a quiet scoff. more silence followed, but this time it was comfortable and thoughtful. Christen was almost nervous about breaking the silence because of how comforting it was, but Christen knew that he couldn’t just hide his thoughts forever.

“ you know, i took this pretty seriously. “  
“ yeah? ”  
“ yeah. i made a flower crown for them and i made a song for them and sang it - they’re probably not even real and i went ahead and thought about how they died and why they died and how their life was before they died. i did it all knowing that there was no way in hell that there was some person out there who happened to die the way i thought they did with no one mourning them. “ Christen rambled on. his eyes stayed firmly placed staring ahead of him, staring at the sun in a hunched position.  
“ i thought they… i thought that they might’ve committed suicide. i thought they were our age, y’know? i made up this entire person and i mourned them. i treated them like a real person. and for what? because i was feeling a little unhappy? i don’t know how to feel about that. “

Cove didn’t respond immediately, and Christen didn’t mind. he thought he was going crazy, to go as far as to make up a fake dead person and then proceed to waste an afternoon writing a song for them and singing it to a flower crown that he made. it seemed so tedious and trivial - most people wouldn’t write an entire song in 3 hours for a fake dead person. Christen felt a little stupid for believing that somehow he could be better or feel better for doing anything like this about his mood at all. suddenly he felt Cove scoot closer to him.  
“ well, i don’t think you’re doing anything bad, per se. what if that person really exists? like maybe there really is a sixteen year old who was in a dark place, and ended their life with no one around them. “ Cove turned and smiled at him. “ and their spirit had just been wandering for a few minutes and they got attracted to the sight of the flower crown and the sound of your voice singing them a song. and maybe they passed on happily. “

Christen chuckled. “ that’s highly unlikely. “ Christen watched as Cove shrugged and fell back onto the grass. Christen thought that he ought to join him.  
“ well, you’ve always been one for impulsive behaviour. i bet you didn’t even think about your sadness when you came down here. “  
“ oh really? “  
that seafoam green hair of his rustled in the wind. “ i know you. you probably weren’t thinking much of anything. i think that’s good about you. you bounce back pretty quickly. “ Christen plopped his legs down from their propped up position from before and stared at the sky.  
“ yeah. maybe i didn’t think anything. “  
“ even if it was of your own selfish desires, there's no such thing as a bad coping mechanism. “  
“ unless your coping mechanism is killing people. “ Christen used his feet to maneuver the flower crown onto his foot, where he violently kicked up. the flower crown landed softly onto the ground next to Cove.   
“ i- what? “  
Christen let out a snicker. “ nothing. “

and there they laid. it was silent, but not awkward or weird or… anything.

“ oh! you said that you wrote a song for them? “  
“ yeah, i did. “  
“ can i hear it? “  
“ pfft, no way. i only get to play it once, and it’s for the dead person “  
“ oh come on! don’t you have, like, a recording of it or something? “  
“ i said no! the song is for dead people and dead people only! “  
“ oh my god. “


End file.
